Bossfight India Game of The Decade : The Top 10

10. Guitar Hero (series)

Yeah, Rock Band got the whole 'band' thing going, but it all started with the 'Guitar Hero' franchise. Developer Red Octane captured the instinctive 'air-guitar' reflex shown by rock fans all over the world, and gave gamers the opportunity to play out their rock fantasies. A few years on, entire virtual bands are performing virtual concerts online – who knew that gaming could take on such a cool new direction. Now we have 'Rock Band', 'Band Hero' and 'DJ Hero' – looks like the fun isn't going to stop anytime soon.

9. God of War series

We're not going to say much about God of War, because talking about it makes us want to play it all over again. And there's so much work to do. One line should do it : Kratos plus brutally violent gameplay that a thousand games try to copy plus the biggest and most badass boss monsters plus incredible graphics equals awesomeness max. There.

8. Wii Sports

The largest selling console of this generation couldn't have done it without its iconic bundled title, Wii Sports. It's a tribute to the game that, for most people, it's synonymous with the console itself – they don't even know it by name. Millions of households were madly swinging their wiimotes trying to play boxing, tennis and golf – and gaming was never the same again. In fact, for a long time, Nintendo struggled to sell other games for the Wii - people were that satisfied with Wii sports.

7. Prince of Persia : The Sands of Time

Jordan Mechner's original Prince of Persia featured the most fluid, realistic animation seen in gaming during the early days. Decades later, Ubisoft continued the legacy with Prince of Persia : The Sands of Time – a 3-D reboot of the series that remains one of the most influential games in recent memory. This was the game that featured the death-defying leaps, hanging off ledges, wall-running and vaulting that you see in Assassin's Creed, InFamous, Uncharted and hundreds of other games today.

6. Baldur's Gate 2: The Shadows of Amn

Baldur's Gate 2 was a staggering achievement when it appeared – giving gamers a hardcore, high fantasy role-playing experience on an unprecedented scale (in fact, it has only been matched by Bioware's own Dragon Age : Origins earlier this year). The Bhaalspawn storyline is one of the finest fantasy stories ever written, not just in gaming, but in any medium. The spontaneous interactions between the NPCs, the romances and the personal NPC side quests sowed the seeds for the making believable NPCs – the influence of which can be seen in games as diverse as Gears of War, Uncharted 2 and Mass Effect. Even nine years after it was made, BG2 remains one of the finest games ever made, and unsurpassed in many ways as a fantasy role-playing experience.

5. The Sims

When Will Wright says that people will play a game about ordinary people gardening, cooking, taking leaks and talking on the phone, you should listen. Luckily for us, EA did precisely that. The result? Only the largest selling PC game franchise of all time. The Sims not only attracted hordes of non-gamers and brought them into the fold, it showed how you could make tons of money by releasing periodic expansion packs. It also pioneered user-generated content in PC gaming – people could create their own items, screenshots and even movies – and share them online.

4. Halo (series)

Microsoft exploded into a sceptical gaming industry, and muscled their XBOX brand into Sony's and Nintendo's turf. The fact that XBOX is now battling the traditional console giants for supremacy is due in no small part to their Halo franchise –arguably the greatest and most influential console shooters of all time. The Master Chief and his marines had millions of gamers enjoying Bungie's '60 seconds of fun – over and over again' formula – and selling XBOXes by the truckloads. Halo also showed the world how to do online multiplayer on a console, and has become one of gaming's premier franchises in a very short span of time.

3. World of Warcraft

More people play 'World of Warcraft' than the entire population of Sweden. When Blizzard took the popular Azeroth universe from their blockbuster 'Warcraft' strategy series, and decided to create a persistent, massively multiplayer role-playing world, people wondered whether it would dethrone Everquest as the king of MMOGs. Thanks to superb game design that perfectly balanced accessibility and challenge, a great questing system, fantastic presentation and Blizzard's renowned penchant for delivering visceral, exciting gameplay, Everquest was dealt a 'permanent death'. And six years later, there isn't a single game that can challenge WoW's supremacy among MMOGs.

2. Half-Life 2

Valve's seminal first-person shooter Half Life 2 remains one of the most critically acclaimed and commerically successful game ever made. Every first-person shooter is essentially an against-all-odds, one man against hordes of enemies experience – and no game delivers the tension, the excitement and the payoff as well as Half-Life 2, in whic you happen to be a bespectacled scientist with a happy knack for saving the universe with an assortment of the coolest weapons ever made (Yes, Gravity Gun, here's looking atcha, kid.). Half-Life 2 packed some of the best level design and greatest set-pieces in the FPS genre, and proved that you don't need other-planetly systems to run great looking games. Unlike that other FPS that begins, rather appropriately, with 'Cry'.

1. Grand Theft Auto series :

Grand Theft Auto 3 heralded a new era in videogames – featuring open-world exploration, great storylines, terrific acting, and completely insane, over-the-top action. The games also featured a morally ambiguous world which made you empathize with, and even glorified gangsters, drug-dealers and criminals. Vice City and San Andreas took the storytelling element even further, featuring some of the most believable, immersive worlds seen in the history of gaming. Last year's GTA IV was, for us, a signpost to the future of gaming. It was an immensely detailed experience that you didn't merely play – you LIVED through it. No two gamers will tell the same story of their experience with the GTA series. In addition to perhaps featuring the best creative work – game design, animation, writing – in gaming, the GTA series is also known for its technical brilliance, featuring top-notch physics, flawless graphics that make the gameworld come alive, and tying together so many diverse gameplay elements to deliver a coherent, beautiful gaming experience. In which other series would you have in-game TV channels and radio stations that were actually better than most drivel you get in the real world? In which other series could you get drunk at a comedy club, get chased by cops, and finally evade them by making an acrobatic motorcycle leap over a river? In which other series could you go to an in-game cyber cafe and randomly surf porn? And in which other series would any of the previously mentioned things be completely peripheral to the main game? The Grand Theft Auto series represents the pinnacle of achievement in game creation – marrying intricate and immersive gameworlds, top-notch presentation and addictive, diverse gameplay elements that remind us that, above all else, games should be fun. For that, and selling a gazillion copies and spawning off a skazillion clones (many of which are great games in their own right), the Grand Theft Auto series sits atop the pile, as Bossfight India's Game of The Decade.

Bossfight Game of The Decade : 20-11

20. Shadow of The Colossus

There are games that make you laugh. There are games that make you angry. And there are games that make you afraid. But it's a rare game that has the power to make you cry – and therein lies the beauty of Shadow of The Colossus. Sure, it had the hugest creatures seen in any game – bosses so big, they didn't END the levels, they WERE the levels. Sure, it had incredibly cinematic action that was as much fun to watch as it was to play. But as you hunted down these majestic, dignified creatures for your own selfish needs, the losses your character went through as you approached the game's end genuinely stabbed at your soul. If you had one, that is. Why it hasn't had a sequel is one of the great mysteries of gaming.

19. Counter-Strike

Yes, fanboys, we like Counter-Strike. It is teh_pWnZorr0xx0rrzzz. We agree. And it makes our top 50 partly because so many of you like it so much, you simply refuse to play anything else after all these years. Counter-Strike is arguably the greatest online shooter of all time, and to think it isn't even a standalone game. Gooseman Minh Le's Half-Life mod used to be the world's most widely played online game for several years, and continues to command a rabid, loyal fan base who refuses to play superior, more modern titles – that's what love can do to you.

18. Resident Evil 4

If there's anything that's more satisfying than shooting zombies in the kneecaps, and then shooting their heads off as they crumple to their (already shattered) knees, then we're yet to experience it. Resident Evil 4 was the biggest, baddest RE game – and featured some of the best character design we've seen. The Wii version also had some cool Wiimote based context sensitive controls – and was the first shooter to truly exploit the Wii's motion controls in a sensible way, paving the way for the many that followed. It also showed that more 'hardcore' adult games could be successful on the world's largest selling console.

17. Star Wars : Knights of The Old Republic.

The best Star Wars experience of the past ten years wasn't a movie – it was Bioware's incredible role-playing game that made the XBOX the console of choice for the RPG hardcore. KOTOR had an epic Star-Wars storyline with a mid-game plot twist that is rivalled only by the one in Bioshock. A richly fleshed-out gameworld, great NPCs, enthralling lore, tense tactical combat and top notch graphics make KOTOR Bioware's second-greatest RPG, and that's saying something. Mass Effect might have been a better cinematic experience, but it's half the game KOTOR was.

16. Gears of War (Series)

Halo 3's delayed launch for the XBOX 360 proved to be a blessing in disguise, as Gears of War suddenly became the console's flagship game. And it proved incredibly influential, too – the now-famous cover system, the cool inter-squadmate banter, and third-person action mechanics are copied in almost every subsequent TPS. Marcus Fenix and Delta Squad also reinvented the online co-op experience, and gave us the 'space-invaders-on-steroids' that is 'Horde' mode in Gears of War 2. The series also gets a special award for popularizing the colours grey, brown, greyish-brown and brownish-grey.

15. Metal Gear Solid 4 (and series)

Metal Gear Solid 4 is the staggering, mind-twisting conslusion to the Metal Gear saga, and is widely regarded as the most technically stunning videogame ever created. Hideo Kojima is the closest thing gaming has to an auteur – the MGS series seamlessly blends together characters, situations, gadgets and gameplay that range from the oddly familiar to the downright outlandish. The plots twist and turn like a Rubik's Cube crossed with Slinky from Toy Story, and by the end of it all, the good guys are the bad guys, the bad guys are still bad guys, and Solid Snake isn't who you (or even he, for that matter) think he is. It's by far the top-selling PS3 exclusive ever, and is one of the reasons that gaming is so wonderful.

14. Uncharted 2 : Among Thieves

What Indiana Jones is to cinema, Nathan Drake is to games (sorry, Lara, but you've got nothing on Drake) today. Uncharted is a strange best in that, it doesn't do anything particularly new, but it does everything to perfection – resulting in a cinematic action-experience quite unlike anything that can be reproduced in any other medium. More than any other recent game, Uncharted 2 shows us how games can be a mass entertainment medium that can deliver the 'interactive movie' experience that has been a chimera for both industries for years. It is the 'Avatar' of gaming – and indeed the prospect of an Uncharted 2 with Avatar's technology, say ten years from now, is a (quite literally) dizzying idea.

13. Forza Motorsport 3

I recently called Forza Motorsport 3 the 'Diablo of racing games'. You just can't stop playing the damn thing. It features the most scalable, customizable difficulty settings seen in any game – and should serve as a lesson to all developers who want to make their games appeal to a wider audiences without losing their hardcore fan base. It's a polished, deep, engrossing racing experience that's as easy or challenging as you want it to be. Absolute videogame perfection, this. Plus – it has Bugatti Veyron pWnage.

12. The Elder Scrolls : Oblivion (and Morrowind)

In my opinion, Oblivion is the second greatest single player role-playing game ever made. And it is the best 'pure role-playing' experience to be had in videogames. Ever. The Elder Scrolls games have their detractors who point to the stiff animations, the dull combat and the 'uncanny valley' factor – but these people are missing the wood for the trees. The basic role-playing system is absolutely spectacular, the gameworld goes far beyond the 'rip off Tolkien and be done with it' trope that even Dragon Age is prey to, and the sense of discovery and exploration in these games is unparallelled. Morrowind and Oblivion are gameworlds you can lose yourself in for months – you don't merely play these games, you actually live them.

11. Call Of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare

Boldly setting aside the tired old World War 2 setting, Modern Warfare thrust players in a fictional war that loosely resembled the Iraq scenario, and focused on giving players the most intense and frenetic FPS experience ever. Sure, the campaign was brilliant, if brief – but Modern Warfare changed the face of online multiplayer forever. It had a superb leveling up system, and introduced unlockable perks, weapons and challenges that players could access as they grew in rank. It added a layer of depth to an already excellent multiplayer shooter, and soon became the most popular online shooter in the world.

Bossfight Game of The Decade : 30 to 21

30. Dragon Age : Origins

Bioware's long-awaited 'spiritual sequel to Baldur's Gate 2' married old-school hardcore role-playing and tactical combat with new-age technical wizardry to deliver the most complete party-based fantasy role-playing game of all time. It's epic, sweeping storyline, great characters and classical RPG elements may just have ensured that Ferelden takes its place as one of gaming's premier RPG realms. Look for an MMO in about five years.

29. Civilization 4

Sid Meier's flagship franchise shows no sign of slowing down. Civ 4 somehow managed to be more addictive than its predecessors (if that's even possible) – so addictive, we played it for 27 hours in a single day. It incorporated features like Religion to the core game mechanics, and speeded up the mid-game – the weakest part of Civilization 3. The best looking Civilization game ever, this is a game we still can't stop playing. Until Civ 5 eventually comes along, hopefully.

28. Street Fighter IV

Just when Fighting Games were fast becoming fancy-pants 3-D borefests that seemed to be hopelessly floundering in the search for graphic superiority and stupid, controller-defying combo systems, along came Street Fighter IV. It opened up a can of old-school Whoop-Ass, and kicked every other game into morrow . . er . . oblivion. Effortlessly balancing hardcoreness with accessibility, SF IV is suddenly the premier fighting franchise yet again.

27. Fallout 3

Fallout fans were almost in permanent mourning over the fate of their favourite franchise (remember Van Buren?) when they found an unexpected saviour in Bethesda Softworks. The studio behind the Elder Scrolls games took the Oblivion engine, slapped in a generous helping of classic Fallout universe ingredients, added some soulful tunes by Danny Kaye, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and the like – and whipped up one magical game, one of the best of all time. And you could shoot mutants to bits - limb by limb.

26. Burnout 3 (and series)

Burnout 3 : Takedown practically reinvented the arcade racing genre which was lumbering under the weight of the bloated, wayward and unpredictable Need for Speed franchise. Burnout took all pretensions of being realisticic and tossed them out the window – setting the standards for over-the-top physics, a blazing sense of speed, and spectacular crashes. Here was a game you could finally win by crashing into other cars and the track at breakneck speed – the n00bs loved it, and the hardcore loved it and a juggernaut franchise was born.

25. Warcraft 3

Blizzard redefines every genre they make games for, every few years. Warcraft 2, along with Command and Conquer, took the RTS genre mainstream. With Warcraft 3, Blizzard destroyed Westwood by taking things so far ahead, it took the C and C franchise many years to catch up. Eye-popping graphics, superb, diverse races, role-playing elements seamlessly woven into RTS gameplay and a story that was told using some of the best cinematics gaming has ever seen. It was Warcraft 3 that paved the way for World of Warcraft, which is reason enough for it to be a hall-of-famer. But Warcraft 3 doesn't need that crutch – it's one of the greatest games ever made.

24. Super Mario Galaxy

You play as a world-famous Italian plumber who leaps from planet to planet, picking up bits of stars, defying gravity, stomping Koopa-Troopas and Goombas, dodging Bullet Bills, rescuing a princess and making sure that gamers all over the world had their pulses racing. It has explosions, Bowser, wonderfulbrillastic graphics, and one of the strangest, most beautiful musical scores to grace a videogame. Super Mario Galaxy is to Super Mario 64 what Super Mario 64 was to Super Mario World. This paragraph will now self-destruct due to awesomeness overload. Boom.

23. Metroid Prime

Roger Ebert prattles on that videogames can never be art. Shigeru Miyamoto makes games that make Roger Ebert look like an idiot. Metroid Prime was a stunningly beautiful first-person adventure featuring the classic Samus Aran bounty-hunting, puzzle solving, boss-battling gameplay set in a hauntingly beautiful 3D world – and proved that first-person games could be successful without purely focusing on gunplay. And you shoot doors to open them. Even Duke Nukem didn't have to be that awesome.

22. Deus Ex

A role-playing adventure disguised as an FPS, Warren Spector's classic arrived in the wake of Half-Life, but managed to hold its own despite being in the perpetual shadow of Gordon Freeman's happy days at Black Mesa. It had an engrossing, conspiracy based storyline, amazing characters, and deep character customization that truly enabled you to play as you liked – all guns-blazing or stealthily. Ideas from Deus Ex are being copied in games to this day – and I'm not talking about black trench-coats and cooling-glasses.

21. Bioshock

A descendant of all-time classics such as Deus Ex and System Shock 2, it would have been easy for Bioshock to have slipped into derivative mediocrity. Luckily for us, Ken Levine and his team at Irrational Games took those features and supercharged them with incredible next-gen production values and creative treatment that would shame most Hollywood movies – and created one of the most beautiful, frightening and unforgettable gaming experiences in history. Bioshock's storytelling made sure that it ws one of the most emotionally resonant games ever made, and Rapture remains one of the most fascinating gameworlds of all time.

Bossfight Game of The Decade : 40 to 31

40.Indigo Prophecy

Though the adventure genre is reported dead ever so periodically, there's always that one title that comes along to make everyone sit up and take notice of how wonderful adventure games really are. Indigo Prophecy was an important experiment in 'the game as interactive movie' - featuring a great, mature storyline, multiple endings, and interesting use of split-screens for storytelling. It had a bushel of new ideas for interface, conversations, and action sequences. Not all of them worked, and the game had some technical issues, but it remains one of the finest adventure games ever made. Let's hope next year's 'Heavy Rain' from the same developer does takes the promise of 'Indigo Prophecy' to the next level.

39.Okami

Even by Japanese standards, Okami is an unusual game. It looks like a Japanese painting. You play as a wolf-god. And you defeat enemies and solve puzzles by using . . er . . calligraphy. So better not run out of ink. The best tribute to Okami is that it's not a game that is easily described to anyone who hasn't played it. But those who have had the pleasure of playing it will never forget the experience.

38.Legend of Zelda : The Twilight Princess

The Wii's first Zelda game was the best looking Zelda yet. It was a darker, more mature Zelda than usual (making it the first Zelda game to receive a T rating from the ESRB). As always, it had its share of cool features - context sensitive controls, chicken-gliding, and - wait for it - Link turning into a vicious wolf! Yay! That's two wolf-based games in a row in the top 50!

37. Farmville

What's a facebook game doing in a Game of The Decade list, I hear you ask? Well, 70 million users don't care about what you ask. Farmville pulled off the staggering achievement of bringing fairly hardcore tile-improvement gameplay (think Civilization) within the scope of casual gamers, who would otherwise play word-games or match-3 puzzles. For this alone, it makes the cut. But don't forget - Farmville featured some imaginative and beautifully implemented real-time and multiplayer aspects that make it more addictive than today's average hardcore games. Don't believe us? Give it a shot.

36. Gran Turismo 3 : A-Spec

In the days when the Ps2 was the world's most powerful console, Gran Turismo 3 was the definitive racing game. The self proclaimed 'Driving Simulator' was precisely that -  featuring realistic handling that hasn't been surpassed even today, a slew of tracks, cars and game modes, it set the standards for simulation based racers that are being followed almost a decade later. GT 3 was also the first console racer where the developers worked with hardware manufacturer Logitech to create a force-feedback enabled racing wheel just for the game.

35. Diablo 2

Blizzard's sequel to their all-time classic Diablo took the whole addictive click-fest thing to another planet. The skill trees and multiple unique character classes added a whole new dimension of fun to Diablo's I-can't-stop-playing gameplay, and made Diablo 2 a game that most people were addicted to twice, or even thrice over. It also fine-tuned the battle.net multiplayer gameplay. Anyone else remember those long, dangerous treks to retrieve your equipment after dying?

34.Dr.Kawashima's Brain Training

This was the title that propelled the initial sales of Nintendo's now ubiquitous DS handheld - with the promise of reducing your 'Brain Age' through a daily dose of puzzle solving. It had some great, imaginative puzzle design, a great hook, and showcased the best of the DS' features such as the touch screen and microphone. 'Rock beats Scissors' FTW!

33. No One Lives Forever

Of all the shooters that immediately followed Half-Life, The Operative : No ONe Lives Forever is perhaps the game that took the genre truly forward. Featuring a great protagonist (Cate Archer was the hottest videogame babe before Chloe Frazier. Yes, including Ms.Croft), laugh-out-loud writing, and splendid level design, this Austin-Powers of videogames takes its rightful place among the decade's best games. The level where you have to leap from a plane and wrest a parachute from one of the falling bad guys remains one of the most exciting set-pieces from any game we remember.

32. Braid

Jonathan Blow's classic platformer from last year reminded us of so many wonderful things - chiefly that it was possible for intelligent, top quality independent games to be commercially successful. Its ingenious puzzles, breathtaking art, and heartbreaking twist-at-the-end were triumphs of game design. So never mind the pretentious hot air that surrounded the game's supposed 'inner meaning' - give Braid a cookie for being simply one of the best games we've ever played.

31. Rock Band Series

We're actually wondering why Rock Band isn't higher up on the list - but it's probably because the Guitar Hero series was more influential in breaking music games out into the mainstream. But Rock Band fine tuned and took the whole concept of 'band play' forward - causing millions of 'air' rock stars (and, to be fair, actual singers) to form virtual bands and rock out to their favourite tunes, both offline and online. The Guitar Hero series took a while to catch up. And then Rock Band signed up The Beatles. Unless there's a Guitar Hero : Keith Richards in the works, we don't see how that's going to be topped.

Bossfight Game of the Decade : 50 to 41

by Anand Ramachandran and Videep Vijay Kumar


50. Soul Calibur 2 (and series)
We hate games that reward button-mashers. That's why we absolutely love Soul Calibur. The finely tuned weapons based fighting system focussed more on careful timing, maneouvering and outwitting your opponent, as opposed to memorizing senseless uber-combos and super-moves. Soul Calibur 2 raised the bar for console fighters, and looked every bit as good as it played. Plus, the XBOX version featured Spawn, who is so badass, his body is made of necroplasm. Ring Out! Um . . I have no idea why I said that.


49. Far Cry / Crysis
Far Cry and Crysis showed than open-ended shooters could be made, and if you had a high-end ATI graphics card in 2004 and an 8-way Nvidia SLI setup in 2007, they could look really, really, really good. But flexible loyalties and gear-whoring aside, both were solid shooters with great replay value and modding potential. Crysis had some brilliant lag-free multiplayer (an achievement for such a graphics-heavy game) that supported 32 players. These games belong on the list, if for nothing else, their technical excellence

48. Portal

What can we really say about Portal? Other than that it was the creepiest, funniest first-person puzzler of all time? That it featured a crazed AI antagonist, GladOS, who made SHODAN seem like she was going to bake you some cookies and give you a blanket? That it had the most emotionally resonant six-sided solid object ever (move over, Rubik's cube) ? Short, sweet and completely mad, Portal is one of the most original videogames ever made, and one of those you play with a continuous silly grin on your face.


47. Pro Evolution Soccer 4 & 5
PES 4 & 5 are still the highest rated football/soccer games on Metacritic, and rightly so. PES 5 is a favourite at Bossfight (although 4 has been played the crap out of as well) for it's sheer superiority over other football games designed by chose cheeky Canadians in Vancouver. Konami showed the world that there, in fact, was alternative to FIFA and that it was probably better. So credit is due to these games for turning a one-horse race into a TWO-horse race. Note: PES was also responsible for the hiring of several Britons (including current lead designer, David Rutter) and other non-Canadian/American staff (you know, the guys who have actually seen an international sport) at EA Canada.

46. Unreal Tournament

This is the game that dethroned the global church of Quake as the world's premier multiplayer shooter. It featured some of the most iconic weapons, maps and game modes seen in the genre – gamers' eyes still mist over when mentioning Morpheus, the Redeemer, the Flak Cannon and the Ripper. It showed that multiplayer could be more than just deathmatch, featured the first actually useful bots in an FPS, and is still played at LAN parties today. It also spawned the Unreal Engine, the present version of which powers many of today's best looking titles. Respect.

45. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (2  & 3)

THPS did something unprecedented – it brought extreme sports into the spotlight like few other things, and made Tony Hawk a household name in . . .er . . households all over the world. THPS 2 was pretty much gaming perfection – a superbly designed learning curve, great, responsive controls, and hours and hours of addictive gameplay. It's a rare game that can appeal to people who aren't really interested in its rather esoteric subject matter, and THPS 2 and 3 did precisely that – actually contributing to the real sport the games were based on. Too bad the series went all downhill and underground after that. Pun unintended, of course. What? What?

44. Super Smash Bros. (Brawl & Melee)

There's a Tamil world – 'galatta' – for absolute mayhem. Which is what the Super Smash Bros. Series is all about. There is no better party game. If you dispute this, then you obviously have never used Wario to fart on an opponent, and then pull a motorcycle out of your pocket and run over him when he's down, overwhelmed by the stink. Word. Plus, it features the best roster ever in a fighting game. Which other title would present Waluigi, Kirby and Solid Snake as equals? We're all for that sort of insanity.


43. GTA Chinatown Wars
Chinatown Wars is arguably the best 'hardcore' game on the Nintendo DS. For starters, it's got 'Grand Theft Auto' written (literally, one could argue) all over it, plus there are tons of innovative DS-specific ideas and mini-games, and most significantly, a true technical achievement on Nintendo's handheld. Chinatown also reminded us that Rockstar (like Bioware, Blizzard and one other company – can't remember which) can do no wrong. The game would subsequently find its way to the PSP, but it's the DS version that stands tall at er... number 43 on this list.

42. Company of Heroes

There is no game that captures the essence of World War II the way Company of Heroes does. The destructible environments, physics effects, cover system (we kid you not) and historically-accurate-yet-cinematic presentation of the campaign make CoH awesome. The multiplayer makes it phenomenal. Trust us, if you've not played a 4 versus 4 skirmish in Route N13, King of the Hill or Montargis Region, then you've not experienced PC strategy gaming at its finest. However, we must admit that the real reason why we dig CoH so much (and think it worthy to be featured on this list) is the near-preposterous attention to detail. Oh, and bundled grenades. We love bundled grenades!

41. Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Every Zelda game is a classic in its own right, but the DS' first Zelda game assumes great significance, since it came carrying a boatload of expectations. Thankfully, Phantom Hourglass didn't disappoint. Featuring a stylus-only input system, ingenious puzzles, and clever use of the DS touch screen and microphone, it showed that the Nintendo DS was not going to be deprived of Ninty's second-greatest franchise. While features like this have become gimmicky now, when we first called out to NPCs to summon them, or actually blew into the DS to blow out burning torches, we were delighted. Like kids with new cookies. What? Kids don't dig cookies anymore? Blame videogames.